I think I’ve spent a good part of my life looking for home.

Not just a place to live, but a place to feel rooted. A place where the pieces of me make sense.

Lately, I’ve been digging through old photographs, family records, Ancestry, Appalachian towns, names I’ve heard my whole life, and stories that were almost forgotten. And somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t just researching my family.

I was finding myself.

I kept coming back to the same people.

Papaw.

Bessie.

My parents.

The generations before them.

The people who lived in little Appalachian communities, worked hard, loved imperfectly, carried grief, raised children, made mistakes, survived things, and kept going.

Some of their stories are beautiful.

Some are painful.

Some I don’t understand yet.

But they’re mine.

And I don’t want these people to become nothing more than names on a family tree.

I want to know them.

I want my boys to know them.

I want to understand the roads they traveled, the places they called home, the things they carried, and the things they handed down to us without ever realizing they were doing it.

That’s why I created Rooting & Becoming.

This is my little corner of the internet where I’m going to put the stories.

The photographs.

The genealogy.

The Appalachian history.

The hard truths.

The funny family stories.

The things I’m learning.

The things I’m healing.

And eventually, the things I want my sons to know about the people they come from.

I don’t know exactly what this will become.

Maybe that’s the point.

I’m still becoming, too.

But I know this much:

I came looking for my roots, and somewhere along the way, I realized I could leave my children something, too.

Not just a family tree.

Not just a collection of photographs.

A story.

Their story.

Our story.

And my little piece of it.

So welcome to Rooting & Becoming.

I’m glad you’re here.

🌿